It is a gray morning but clearing as if it were
not going to snow after all. I feel rather
mindless about the weather as I dont want to go out, and
rather tired too much after so much going on
yesterday. Dr. Jelly* said the same things and
warned me again that it was going to take a good
while -- the only thing I suppose will be to
find the place or keep on the place where I feel and
make the least friction. I dare say if you dont
feel it you arent so apt to make it, but it is a long
drag. Part of the time I have been so glad to do
nothing for I have been tired enough for years
back. The only things [ so transcribed ]
is to muster what patience I can and not to think about
myself any more than I can help -- that's the poison of
any life sick or well.

Notes

1902-3: This letter seems likely to have
been composed during Jewett's months of confinement
after her September 1902 carriage accident.

Dr. Jelly: It seems likely this is George
F. Jelly, M.D. a Boston alienist who died in 1911.
His son, Arthur C. Jelly followed him into the
profession and was a fellow member of the American
Medico-Psychological Association. Little more has
been discovered about these two men, and it is not
certain that either attended on Jewett after her
carriage accident. Assistance is welcome.

This text is from transcriptions from mixed repositories
in the Maine Women Writer's Collection, University of
New England, Letters from Sarah Orne Jewett, 1875-1890,
Undated Letters, Folder 75, Burton Trafton Jewett
Research Collection. For more information about the
individual transcription, contact the Maine Women
Writers Collection. Notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.

235

SOJ to Lilian Woodman Aldrich

Monday morning
January 5th [ 1903 ]*

[ Begin letterhead ]

South Berwick.
Maine.

[ End letterhead ]

Dear Lilian

My sister Mary* wrote many of my
Christmas notes for me but I wish to write you myself
and I am sorry that so many days have gone by. I
thanked you so much for your dear note and for
the beautiful little pin -- Theodore* looked at it with
such admiring eyes that I had to say he

[ 2 ]

might wear it until his aunt could make a proper show
of it in something better than a Kimono! (He is such a
careful person, Theodore! and with a great sense of
what is exactly smart). I think that the company of
that pin in his cravat lent a glory to this Christmas
vacation beyond others, and he was so nice and
companionable -- I do want you to see him again as a
grown person!

--- But dear Lilian you

[ 3 ]

were so kind to think of me ^in^ that hurrying and
anxious time before Christmas. How many
Christmas [ so spelled ] we have kept
together! -- For twenty years I have not missed
spending part of the day at 148, and for a long time
in the autumn I clung to the hope that I should
still get to town by that time but my broken head*
seems to mend very slowly and I still have attacks
of pain when the back of my neck feels as if it were
hurt only

[ 4 ]

a day or two ago -- and I can really do very
little though I get down stairs for the afternoons
and often a [ good piece ? ] of the
evening. You cant think how happy it makes me to
think of Miss Vauchel's* being with our dear A.F.*
and she writes so happily and in such a
different tone. I really feel better myself for I
could not help worrying; she felt very lonely and
was so eager to be free from the other
arrangement.

I wish that I could know how
you found Charley -- and if you went for your dear
old New Year week to New York you and T.B.*
together -- But I shall

[ Up the left margin and then across
the top margin of page 1 ]

be hearing of you, I hope through A.F. With love
and thanks I am ever yours and T.B.'s
affectionate "Sadie."*

Tell T.B. to keep strong [ there ? ] up
at 4 Park St.* about his new book

[ Up the left margin of page 2
and then across the top margins of
pages 2 & 3 ]

I think that "The House" print and bind well but
they dont publish like MacMillan & McClure{.}
They dropped The Tory Lover* when they ought to
have kept it best before the public and they
either need new salesmen or something* I
dont say what!

Notes

1903: As the notes below indicate, Jewett
composed this letter in the winter after her September
1902 nearly fatal carriage accident.

broken head: Jewett suffered severe head
and neck injuries in a carriage accident on her
birthday, 3 September 1902.

T.B.: Thomas Bailey Aldrich. See Correspondents.
The Aldriches' twin sons, Talbot and
Charles were born in 1868. Charles was diagnosed
with tuberculosis in 1902, and he died two years later
in March 1904.

Vauchel's ... A.F.: Annie Adams Fields. See Correspondents.
Miss Vauchel may be
LucyVoshell. According to Paula Blanchard, Fields
had a minor stroke in the fall of 1902 and continued
unwell through much of the winter 1902-3 (pp.
349-50) During an illness a few years later
(1906-7), Fields's friend, Julia Ward Howe, was attended
by Lucy Voshell: "This nurse was known to others
as Lucy Voshell, but her patient promptly named her
'Wollapuk.' She was as merry as she was skillful, and
the two made much fun together. Even when the patient
could not speak, she could twinkle. As strength
gradually returned, the ministrations of Wollapuk became
positively scenes of revelry; and the anxious guardian
below, warding off would-be interviewers or suppliants,
might be embarrassed to hear peals of laughter ringing
down the stair." The Thomas Bailey Aldrich
collection at the University of Virginia, includes
letters from Lilian Woodman (Mrs. Thomas Bailey) Aldrich
to Lucy Voshell regarding Aldrich's twin sons.
That Lucy Voshell nursed two close friends of Fields
suggests that she may have cared for Fields as well.

Sadie: One of Jewett's nicknames.
With the Aldriches, this would have been Sadie Martinot,
after the actress of that name. See Correspondents.

4 Park St.: Location of the offices of Houghton
Mifflin. Jewett goes on to complain about "The House,"
or Houghton Mifflin, for deficiencies in marketing,
particularly of her final novel, The Tory Lover
(1901).
Jewett may refer to Ponkapog
Papers (1904) as Aldrich's new book, about which
he may have been negotiating with Houghton Mifflin. Or,
perhaps she speaks of his most recent title, A Sea
Turn and Other Matters (1902), if the issue is
marketing.

something: Jewett underlines this word
twice.

The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton
Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. Thomas
Bailey Aldrich Papers, 119 letters of Thomas Bailey and
Lilian Woodman Aldrich, 1837-1926. MS Am 1429 (117).
Transcribed and annotated by Terry Heller, Coe College.
At the bottom left of page one, in
another hand, is a circled number: 2758.

SOJ to Annie Adams Fields

Saturday morning. [January 1903]

And now the ball is over, and I suppose a
tired hostess, and the chairs all going upstairs
again, and the dear room will look like a green garden
that no wind ever blows over! I do so long to hear if
it went off to your mind, and if the company liked the
singing, and where it was you hung the lantern! and
oh, dear! a thousand questions!

Yesterday afternoon I amused myself with Miss
Austen's "Persuasion."* Dear me, how like her people
are to the people we knew years ago! It is just as
much New England before the war -- that is, in
provincial towns -- as it ever was Old England. I am
going to read another, "Persuasion" tasted so good! I
haven't read them for some time.

I long to know if you have read dear Alice
Meynell's paper in the "Atlantic."* She has changed it
in places from her lecture to an essay, and I can't
find just the places where she laughed aloud and all
the audience with her; but what a rich bit of writing
it is -- and of such depth and such inexhaustible
charm!

Somebody sent me the other day a pamphlet with
an address about Count Rumford, and, best of all,
stuck on a fly-leaf is a cutting from an old newspaper
with the list of their household goods, which were
sold at auction in Brompton when the countess left
London. It mentions five lofty, four-post beds,
which pleases me much. This was a kind of man who had
seen in a newspaper that I was going to write about
the Rumfords,* and I thank him very much for his
pamphlet!

paper in the "Atlantic": During her 1902
American tour, one of the lectures in Meynell's
repertoire was "Dickens as a Man of Letters."
See SOJ to Sara Norton, 20th March
[1902]. Her essay, "Charles Dickens as a Man of
Letters," appears in Atlantic 91 (Jan. 1903):
52-59.

Count Rumford ... I was going to write about:
Jewett was working on a |"paper" on the Sarah
Thompson, Countess of Rumford as early as 1890; see
SOJ to Louisa Dresel, November 28, [1890].
Richard Cary, in notes for that letter, says: "Among
Jewett's papers in the Houghton Library is an
unfinished holograph manuscript of some twenty-five
odd sheets, the ink and handwriting testifying that
they were written at different intervals, with
plethoric alterations, entitled 'The Countess of
Rumford.' There is no evidence of a fair copy or of
publication."
Jewett became interested in Benjamin Thompson,
Count Rumford (1753-1814) in part because his widow,
Sarah, lived the end of her life in nearby Concord,
New Hampshire; she was a cousin to Jewett's Aunt
Lucretia. Though Jewett apparently did not publish her
work, the Countess may have influenced Jewett's
characterizations of eccentric aristocratic women such
as Lady Ferry and Miss Chauncey (in Deephaven).
See
Paula Blanchard, pp. 344-5.It is not yet known in what newspaper
Jewett's acquaintance learned she was going to write
about the Rumfords, nor has the pamphlet she received
been identified.

I am very sorry that your first letter should have
been unanswered, but I had a very bad accident in
being thrown from a carriage several months ago, and I
still find it difficult to attend to letters that
come.

I am glad to do what you ask and I hope that it will
not matter too much that my answer comes so late.1

Yours sincerely
Sarah O. Jewett

Notes

1 Here is an example of Jewett
responding to her public. She wrote many such notes to
people who wrote in admiration, or simply for her
autograph. Though there are records on-line of
at least two Reuben H. Hiltons living in the United
States in 1903, the identity of this person has not
been confirmed.

The manuscript of this letter is in the
collection of the Miller Library of Colby College,
Waterville, ME. The transcription first appeared
in Scott Frederick Stoddart's Ph.D. dissertation at
the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign: Selected
Letters
of Sarah Orne Jewett, copyright by Stoddart,
1988. Annotation is by Stoddart, supplemented
where appropriate by Terry Heller, Coe College.

Sarah Wyman Whitman to SOJ

February 6, 1903.

I have had a day of successive events, none of
them of my own election; and I am just wondering if it
must be always thus. I contemplate a little innocent
personal strike! So watch the "Evening Transcript." *

First I must tell a great tale of
experience! When I was coming up to bed last night
at half past seven (* "dark under the table!" I
stopped out in the hall where the box is, and put my
fingers in to get two pieces of that oat-cake. And
they seemed to be a new shape and Bigger -- And they
were cookies!! -- Oh it made a great party; Mary*
had to come up the stairs to have some handed to her
and Timmy* came galloping from somewhere --
and when he was told that he couldn't have any, said
nothing but some minutes afterward I looked behind
me as I was undressing, and there

[ Page 2 ]

sat Timmy waiting and looking with his little keen head
as sharp as a bird's! So Timmy got a whole half
of a cooky, for his deep appreciation! It made a great
evening !! [ but corrected ] when I began to eat
mine I felt a little homesick and they had to be just as
good as they were to console my heart. I had been
reading The Singing Shepherd* book in the parlour late
in the afternoon, and I am always thinking a great deal
about you and the dear house. I wish over and over again
that I could come (-- it is so hard too to say no when you
want anything! but I should be sure to be so tired for
two or three days after the

[ Page 3 ]

little journey, and you might think it was worse than it
is and worry and then you would be 'all tired
out{'} and that would worry me anew -- oh no dear, we
had better wait a little while longer -- I dont quite
dare to try going out yet, and I begin to feel like it
once in a while too, which I hadn't for a long time
before. I get up at about noon, and sometimes I stay
down stairs until after tea & into the evening, and
sometimes I come up here and lie on the couch & go
down to tea again. I think this is the best way. I walk
about now and then and go to stand in the doorway to get
a

[ Page 4 ]

good sniff of the snowy air. I wish you* had
these easy stairs to get up and down. I am afraid that I
shall boast of them more than usual -- but whether it
was because I learned to go upstairs and down on them in
infancy or not they always seem as if you came up
without feeling half so much weight of yourself -- (
I quite long to know how Mrs. Cabot* is. I haven't heard
a word for a longer time than normal and I am always
afraid that she has got cold.

-- Tell me all the little news about
you, dear -- that's what I am always wanting to know!
Give my love to the girls ^Cassie & Mrs [unrecognized
name]^* and tell them about [ one unrecognized
word written over another ] cookies -- it was so
funny.

Your most loving

P. L.*)

[ Up the left margin and partly
across the top margin of p. 1 ]

Mary just heard about Tosy and the
cookies -- and said "of course he waited; his aunt
Annie sent those cookies for him!*

Notes

Winter 1903: Fields penciled "1902" in the upper
right of page 1, and this may be correct, but because
Jewett clearly is still recovering from her
September1902 carriage accidentand says nothing
about holidays, it seems more likely that this letter is
from early1903. Parenthesis marks in this
manuscript also were penciled by Fields.
Fields also has deleted "Annie" in the greeting.

seven (: Jewett may have written this parenthesis
mark, as it appears to be in ink. However, there is no
corresponding end parenthesis.

The flowers are most lovely -- a true spring
gathering, and yesterday was a winter day in Berwick, I
can tell you! -- but they came as warm as toast in their
box. As for the "basket to keep," it is a treasure indeed!
Mary* contemplated it with joy as if she meant to start
for the garden at once. How kind you were to think of me!
We were speaking of that charming luncheon only a day or
two ago, and ever since you came from Burlington I have
been wishing that I could see you, and following your gay
career and the gay buds in the newspapers as best I could
though Mrs. Cabot* has been as kind as she could be in
writing all winter.
I was amusing myself lately by thinking how much I
feel like one of those stupid old winter flies that appear
out of their cracks at this time of year, but I know one
thing -- how "sensible they are to kindness," as my
grandmother would say.
Next summer the trolley cars that go to York are to
have a branch line to Berwick1 (change at
Portsmouth Bridge!) and I shall hope that you can be
coaxed to take the journey. It is a pretty bit of country
from here to Little Boar's Head all the way.
Please give my love to all the Monday luncheoners
when you go again, and especially to Elsie2
next time you see her. I have thought about her a great
deal and such a charming letter that she wrote me
in the autumn.
Yours most affectionately and with many thanks,
Sarah O. Jewett

Isn't it good that dear Mrs. Cabot has kept so
well all winter? I don't know what I should have done if
she had fallen ill too!

Notes

1 The electric trolley lines of the
Portsmouth, Dover and York Street Railway were extended to
South Berwick during the spring of 1903. 2 Mrs. Perkins' daughter Elsie Alice,
wife of William Hooper, a Boston cotton mills, mining, and
railway executive. Alice Perkins Hooper maintained a home
in Boston and a cottage in Manchester-by-the-Sea, where
she entertained many of the women in the Fields-Jewett
circle. Helen Bell characterized her house as the only salon
in Massachusetts

This letter is edited and annotated by Richard Cary in Sarah
Orne
Jewett Letters; the ms. is held by Colby College
Special Collections, Waterville, Maine.

SOJ to Marie Thérèse de Solms Blanc

[February-March 1903]

…1… complain no more, this letter is dull
enough without that!

I wonder if it is too late to make a change or
two in the French edition of my Tory Lover? On the
23rd page, for example, where (3rd line from foot) I say Prince
of Conti, I should like to say Duke of Berwick,
and on page 154 is a gap in the edition I sent Mlle
Douesnel,2 and in your first edition a great
mistake on the middle of the page! I said Duke de
Sully at a venture and never corrected it until the
second edition where the whole phrase was cut out. That
should be Duke of Berwick too or read thus:
"added the old Irish rebel, who had been like a son to his
father's friend the great Duke of Berwick, Marshal of
France." If there is a second edition I should like to
have the first of these corrected in the plates (Prince
of Conti erased for Duke of Berwick).3
I had a note of sympathy for my illness from the
translator, but I fear that you have had a very trying and
tiresome work in supplementing hers.

Please give my affectionate homage to Madame de
Beaulaincourt. It is delightful -- the success of Monsieur
'Ski.'4 I should like to send a new message of
thanks for the postcards, which renew the delight of my
day's visit -- I do not forget a moment that I spent at
Acosta. Under your French skies the violets will soon be
blooming again there, with the new Spring.

My sister sends you her love. She has had a busy
winter, as you will know, and Theodore has been working
hard at his professional school. Timmy looks old, but his
heart is ever young and a little affair of honour with
dogs of the village sends him home wounded but victorious
from time to time.

I wish that you were here, my dear friend, in
this bright winter weather. I do not know if I have told
you that our good John has died -- it was in December, and
from the effects of his army wound. You will know how much
we miss that good friend and servant of nearly thirty
years.5

There is everything to say, and I have said
nothing! I remember in this moment to ask you if you are
really translating Lady Rose's Daughter for the Revue6as
our newspapers say? I have been looking over the letters
of Mlle de Lespinasse7 -- the story has curious
likenesses of character with likeness of plot. Whatever
one may say, it seems, so far as I have read, a great
story and far beyond her others.8

Yours with
unfailing love,

S. O. J.

Notes

1 This is a fragment, the only
part which seems to have survived.

2 Mlle Douesnel translated Le
Roman d'Un Loyaliste.

3 On page 154 of the first edition of
The Tory Lover (first state of text, red binding),
lines 16-17 read: rebel, who had seen with his own
eyes the great Duke / de Sully, Marshal of France.
In the 1901 reprint (second state of text, blue binding),
the sentence is curtailed after rebel and a
two-line blank follows. Prince of Conti was not
corrected on page 23 of the reprint.
This also remains unchanged in the 1905 French
edition (page 34), and a compression in the translation
(page 200) eliminates all reference to Duke and Marshal.
In the English edition (London: Smith, Elder &
Co., 1901), Prince of Conti is retained (page 20),
as is the full sentence concerning Duke and Marshal
(page 136).

4 'Ski' is the diminutive of
Viradobetski, the Polish sculptor and dilettante of "tous
les arts" in Proust's Remembranceof Things
Past. Miss Jewett is referring to the original of
this character, a lifelong friend of Proust, Frédéric de
Madrazo. A dabbler in singing, composing, and painting, he
was a favorite in salons like that of Madame de
Beaulaincourt (1818-1904).

5 John Tucker (see Letter 14, note 2)
died on December 4, 1902. During the Civil War he served
in the 17th Maine Regiment and was wounded by a shell at
the Battle of Chancellorsville, May 3, 1863.

6 Mrs. Humphry Ward's "La fille de
lady Rose," translated by Th. Bentzon, appeared in seven
installments in the Revue des Deux Mondes, n.s.
XVII, from September 15 through December 15, 1903.

7 Julie Jeanne Eléanore de Lespinasse
(1732-1776) presided over one of the more famous salons in
the Paris of her day. Her death is said to have been
hastened by the marriage of Count de Guibert to another
woman. The Lettres écrites de 1773 à 1776
by Mlle de Lespinasse contains a record of this unrequited
love. First published by the count's widow in two volumes
in 1809, it went through several editions, then was issued
in 1893 with an introduction by Sainte-Beuve. The edition
Miss Jewett probably read is the translation of this text
by Katharine Prescott Wormeley, distributed by the Boston
firm of Hardy, Pratt & Company in 1901, 1902, and
1903. In the Introduction to Lady Rose's Daughter
-- volume XI, the Autograph Edition of The Writings of
Mrs. Humphry Ward (Boston, 1910) -- Mrs. Ward
reveals that she "saw the germ of a story" in
"Sainte-Beuve's study of Julie de Lespinasse."

8 With this opinion the translator
took strong exception. On March 14, 1903, Miss Wormeley
wrote to Miss Jewett: "With regard to the book I feel
vexed with Mrs. Ward for having degraded Mlle de
Lespinasse into an adventuress. I don't think she had the
right to take a real person and insult her memory."
(Houghton Library, Harvard)

This letter is edited and annotated by Richard Cary in Sarah
Orne
Jewett Letters; the ms. is held by Colby College
Special Collections, Waterville, Maine.

SOJ to Annie Adams Fields

Transcription 1

Sunday

[ March 1903 ]*

Dearest Annie

Wasn't it interesting that I should have been so
concerned about your having a cold? I am sorry enough my
visions prove true -- oh do be careful dear! but Mrs
Voshell* will know what to do for you. This is the time in
winter when people get tired and have the grippe, but I do
believe that we ought to be 'smoked' after we have had it
-- it is so contagious and may make so much trouble for
others --- I was very sorry that I laid blame in the wrong
quarter (if there were blame!) about Rosalie -- but I did
feel so for poor little Eppie.* What fun it would be to
have her in the south room at Manchester if you were well!
Dear little thing! ---

What do you think I read yesterday but a good
piece of The Tory Lover!* You know how long it takes
before you can sit down to a book of your own with any
detachment -- as if somebody else had written it? I have
taken it up now and then and found that it only worried me
but yesterday was different -- it seemed quite new and
whole! and I really was delighted with my piece of work. I
have never succeeded in doing anything except the Pointed
Firs* that comes anywhere near it -- my conscience upholds
this happy belief, and whether it was a hundred years ago
or not, is apart from the question altogether. The book of
Ruth was is [so written] an historical novel in its
day.* The French Country House is no more real to writer
or reader because Mrs. Sartoris* had made the visit &
imagined she made some episodes a few summers before --- I
can't think what people are thinking of who didn't like
the T. L. as much as some of my books of slight sketches
which -- are mostly imaginary! or even as well as the
Pointed Firs. but as Brother Robert* frankly remarked
"They don't!" --- I can't help being sure that somebody
now and then will like it. and if H. & M.*
were as good publishers as they are printers it would have
been done better -- However it did very well and let's not
grumble about any thing. I think it wasn't very well
fitted for a Serial. I am sorry for all that part of it
and for the foolish exhausting hurry I was led into.

[more follows on other topics]

Notes

March 1903: That Jewett has been re-reading
The Tory Lover, that Annie Fields is ill and under
the care of Lucy Voshell, and that Jewett cannot go to her
points to this tentative date, after Fields's possible
minor stroke in the fall of 1902, following Jewett's
serious carriage accident in September of 1902.

Mrs Voshell: Mrs. or Miss Voshell seems to be
Annie's nurse. According to Paula Blanchard, Fields
had a minor stroke in the fall and continued unwell
through much of the winter 1902-3 (pp. 349-50)
During an illness a few years later (1906-7), Fields's
friend, Julia Ward Howe, was attended by Lucy
Voshell: "This nurse was known to others as Lucy
Voshell, but her patient promptly named her 'Wollapuk.'
She was as merry as she was skillful, and the two made
much fun together. Even when the patient could not speak,
she could twinkle. As strength gradually returned, the
ministrations of Wollapuk became positively scenes of
revelry; and the anxious guardian below, warding off
would-be interviewers or suppliants, might be embarrassed
to hear peals of laughter ringing down the stair."
The Thomas Bailey Aldrich collection at
the University of Virginia, includes letters from Lilian
Woodman (Mrs. Thomas Bailey) Aldrich to Lucy Voshell
regarding Aldrich's twin sons. That Lucy Voshell
nursed two close friends of Fields suggests that she may
have cared for Fields as well.

Rosalie ... Eppie: The identities of these
people is unknown. Assistance is welcome.

The Tory Lover: Jewett's last novel was
serialized in Atlantic Monthly, beginning in 1900
and appeared as a book in 1901.

Pointed Firs: Jewett's The Country of the
Pointed Firs (1896).

book of Ruth ... in its day: The Book of Ruth tells the Old Testament
Biblical story of a woman of Moab who converts to Judaism
and adopts the Israelites as her people. It seems
likely that Jewett is thinking of what Henry James wrote
to her in his letter of 5 October 1901: "The 'historic'
novel is, for me, condemned, even in cases of labour as
delicate as yours, to a fatal cheapness, for the simple
reason that the difficulty of the job is inordinate &
that a mere escamotage, in the interest of each,
& of the abysmal public naïveté, becomes inevitable.
You may multiply the little facts that can be got from
pictures, & documents, relics & prints, as much as
you like -- the real thing is almost impossible to do,
& in its essence the whole effect is as nought."

Mrs. Sartoris: Adelaide Kemble Sartoris (1815 -
1879) was an English opera singer, the younger sister of
Fanny Kemble, actress and anti-slavery activist. She
wrote A Week in a French Country House (1867).

The original of this letter is held by the Houghton Library,
Harvard University, in bMS Am 1743 (255) folder 13.
This transcription is incomplete. Transcription and
notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
The following transcription also is incomplete,
showing the letter as it appears in the Annie Fields
collection.

Transcription 2 This text is from transcriptions from mixed
repositories in the Maine Women Writer's Collection,
University of New England, Letters from Sarah Orne Jewett,
1875-1890, Folder 72, Burton Trafton Jewett Research
Collection. For more information about the individual
transcription, contact the Maine Women Writers
Collection. Preparation by Linda Heller.

Sunday

Dearest Annie . . . . . . . . . . . What do you think
I read yesterday but a good piece of The Tory Lover!
You know how long it takes before you can sit down to a book
of your own with any detachment -- as if
somebody else had written it? I have taken it up now
and then and found that it only worried me but yesterday was
different. It seemed quite new and whole! and I
really was delighted with my piece of work. I have
never succeeded in doing anything except the Pointed Firs
that comes anywhere near it. My conscience upholds
this happy belief, and whether it was a hundred years ago or
now, is apart from the question altogether. The book
of Ruth was an historical novel in its day. The French
Country House is no more real to writer or reader because
Mrs. Tartons had made the visit & imagined she made some
episodes a few summers before. I cant think what
people are thinking of who didn't like the T. L. as much as
some of my books of slight sketches which are mostly
imaginary! or even as well as the Pointed Firs, but as
Brother Robert frankly remarked "They dont!" I cant
help being sure that somebody now and then will like it and
if H. & M. were as good publishers as they are printers
it would have done better. However it did very well
and let's not grumble about any thing. I think it
wasn't very well fitted for a serial. I am sorry for
all that part of it, and for the foolish exhausting hurry I
was led into . . . . . . . . . . . . .

SOJ to Lilian Woodman Aldrich

Friday morning [ Winter or
early spring, 1903 ]*

[ Begin letterhead ] South Berwick, Maine.

[ End letterhead ]

Dear Lilian

I have been wishing to write to you for
so many days -- ever since I knew that Mrs. Richardson's*
long siege of suffering was over -- but I knew that you
would understand why I did not, and ^know^ that I thought of
you very often. I have loved to remember how kind she was
that autumn when A.F.* and I were at Martinsville. I came
really to know her there

[ 2 ]

and we had such pleasant times together before she went
away to town -- We always talked about it afterward and I
never shall forget it -- I wish that you would send my
love to Mr. Richardson when you write, and tell him that I
feel the truest sympathy for him -- it is such a hard time
while { -- } at first one remembers only
the sad pain and difficult hours of a long illness but
later this all fades out of mind, and then one keeps

[ 3 ]

all the memories of happiness and pleasure. Thank
Heaven that it is so! -----

You will be sure that I am always
longing to get to town to be with dear A.F. but it is no
use to think of it (for both our sakes) until I am much
stronger. I keep having returns of the pain and dizziness
in my head, but now these only last for a day or two and
come further and further apart -- By and by the doctors
are sure that I

[ 4 ]

shall miss them altogether! I am not very strong yet but I
stay 'up' all the afternoon now and get down to luncheon
& to tea, too -- with Mary* which is much
cheerfuller for both of us. Give my love to dear T.B.* (I
want more sorts of a paper !!) When you see our
dear friend do tell me how she seems to you and if she is
really getting on better. She has to be very careful not
to overdo but [ on ? ] 'better days' it is a great
temptation to make the most of oneself! I suppose those
are the very days when one should be

[ Up the left margin and then across the top
margin of page 1 ]

quiet and save up! I hope that you have good news from
dear Charley? Yours with much love and many wishes

S.O.J.

Notes

1903: Jewett indicates that she has nearly
recovered enough from her September 1902 carriage accident
to be able to look forward to leaving home to visit Annie
Fields in Boston, making it very likely that his letter is
from early 1903. However, it is possible that the
letter comes from late in 1902.

Mrs. Richardson's: According to George Carey's
"The Rise and Fall of Elmore," The
William Richardsons at Seawoods and the Aldriches at the
Crags were neighbors during summers at Tenants Harbor, ME.
See Correspondents.

T.B.: Thomas Bailey Aldrich. See Correspondents.
The Aldriches' twin sons, Talbot and
Charles were born in 1868. Charles was diagnosed with
tuberculosis in 1902, and he died two years later in March
1904.

The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton
Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. Thomas Bailey
Aldrich Papers, 119 letters of Thomas Bailey and Lilian
Woodman Aldrich, 1837-1926. MS Am 1429 (117). Transcribed
and annotated by Terry Heller, Coe College.
At the bottom left of page one, in
another hand, is a circled number: 2764.

SOJ probably to Mary Rice Jewett

Tuesday morning [ 1903 ]

South Berwick, Maine

……………Dont hurry back, we are getting on “soberly,
righteously and godly” -- (I used to think it was soberlily
neighborlily and Godlily!) Timmy* is as
well as can be.

With much love

Sarah

Notes

The line of points presumably indicates an omission from the
manuscript.

Timmy: This Jewett dog appears in her letters
in 1899 and is reported as old but vigorous in 1903.
It seems likely that this letter is from closer to
1903. Therefore, I have tentatively placed it in that
year.

This text is from transcriptions from mixed repositories in
the Maine Women Writer's Collection, University of New
England, Letters from Sarah Orne Jewett, 1875-1890, Undated
Letters, Folder 75, Burton Trafton Jewett Research
Collection. For more information about the individual
transcription, contact the Maine Women Writers Collection.
Notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.

SOJ to Annie Adams Fields

[March, 1903]*

Thursday

‘9 [Unreadable letters]

Dearest Annie

My window is open and the children are all in the
streets going to school, it is so spring-like somehow and
if I shut my eyes I might think it was Napoli
there is such a racket! I never thought until this minute
that all the French children may make a difference it
didn’t it wasn't quite ^so^ racketty (like a town
of English sparrows.) once it seems to me. Perhaps you
will say that it is this Pinny and her old cracked
head. I begin to think that this old head is never going
to mend either. Sometimes I feel better and then I get
very hopeful -- In the early winter I used to talk about
getting to town, and Mary* ^or^ the doctor would say what
was quite true, that she was afraid that jolting in cars
would be too much, or I should want to see everybody when
I got there - and I used to cry out Oh do let me
have my hopes about things! I am so tired and it has got
to be so long now that I cant help snatching at a little
hope when I see it, but they dont fly by very often! Fuff*
to have patience with such a poor thing ---- Oh when I
think that if I were well how I could go and get you and
take you to some nice place where you could get out, you
and Miss Voshell* ^too^ so you could be nice and
comfortable. I wouldn't go off and leave you! Silver vases
indeed for that grabbing old Jew, but I pray Heaven never
to owe them a cent or to have you, either!* Oh if I only
could get well enough to take the dearest care of you!
Nobody knows what a hard, anxious winter this has been.
aching and worrying over and over. but we must be be [repeated
word] thankful that we were at home where we could
get the [little / better] comfort there ^is^ to be [unreadable
word] had -- and not away in some unloved desolate
places.

I feel as if the one thing you did want me to do
had failed you, dear, but it wouldn't do to try that
chilly wooden house now early in the season -- you
know what it would be to try the Manchester house in March
& April, even with coal enough. In summer it
would be so different. Dont try to look ahead and worry
dear ^and worry other people?^ -- lets wait until ahead
gets here and then do the best we can.

Mary sends you much love, she keeps well and
cheerful so far, and drives a good deal [cross-written
on page 1] because the horses must be used, and it
has been so good for her. Forgive anything wrong in this
poor letter, and remember that I love you dear. And we are
going to be well again, but it is very hard now.

Yours always,
Pinny*

[Cross-written on p. 4:] I don’t want to see
the Howells letter, his last Easy Chair was so hateful in
its spirit that I cant get over it. So hateful and
sneering at other people’s work*

Notes

March 1903: This date is uncertain, but
likely. Jewett suffered her carriage
accident on 3 September 1902. In Sarah Orne
Jewett, Paula Blanchard reports that Jewett was able
to go to Boston again for the first time after the
accident in April of 1903 (pp. 349-50). This
information suggests that this letter likely was written
in early spring, probably March of 1903. Though the
letter could not have been written in 1904, because Fields
was in Europe that spring, it is possible this letter
comes from 1905 or 1906. It would help if one could
discover the Howells piece to which Jewett refers in her
post script. See note below.

Miss Voshell: Mrs. or Miss Voshell seems to
be Annie's nurse. According to Paula Blanchard,
Fields had a minor stroke in the fall and continued unwell
through much of the winter 1902-3 (pp. 349-50)
During an illness a few years later (1906-7), Fields's
friend, Julia
Ward
Howe,
was attended by Lucy Voshell: "This nurse was known
to others as Lucy Voshell, but her patient promptly named
her 'Wollapuk.' She was as merry as she was skillful, and
the two made much fun together. Even when the patient
could not speak, she could twinkle. As strength gradually
returned, the ministrations of Wollapuk became positively
scenes of revelry; and the anxious guardian below, warding
off would-be interviewers or suppliants, might be
embarrassed to hear peals of laughter ringing down the
stair." The Thomas
Bailey
Aldrich
collection at the University of Virginia, includes
letters from Lilian Woodman (Mrs. Thomas Bailey) Aldrich
to Lucy Voshell regarding Aldrich's twin sons. That
Lucy Voshell nursed two close friends of Fields suggests
that she may have cared for Fields as well.

Silver vases indeed for that grabbing old Jew:
This reference is obscure. Assistance is welcome.

the Howells letter, his last Easy Chair was so hateful:
William Dean Howells, editor at Harper's Magazine
from 1886, began in 1900 the Editor's Easy Chair column,
which appeared near the end of each issue. These
columns generally were genial and rarely named living
authors. It is not clear which column Jewett found
so hateful, nor has another Howells piece appearing after
1902 yet been located that Jewett might have found
"hateful and sneering." Assistance is welcome.

The manuscript
of this letter is at the University of New
England, Maine Women Writers Collection,
Jewett Collection correspondence corr056-soj-af.05
Transcription and notes by Terry & Linda Heller, Coe
College.

SOJ to Emily Marshall Otis Eliot

South Berwick, Maine
Thursday April 2nd [ 1903 ]*

Dear Mrs. Eliot

I can hardly tell you how much pleasure your kind
remembrance and these lovely spring flowers have brought
me. Indeed you are very kind! I am getting
better and such a pleasure counts double -- I was thinking
very lately about you and especially about the day when I
saw you in Newport at Miss Ticknor's* I wonder if you will
not remember it? I have missed so much my winter
visits in town and especially being with Mrs. Fields.*
I can hardly wait to get to her: you will know how hard it
has been to be away.

With love and thanks for your dear kindness believe
me ever

Yours most sincerely,

Sarah Orne Jewett

Notes

1903: This probable date is inferred from
Jewett reporting that she has been seriously ill and has not
seen Annie Adams Fields in Boston since before the previous
winter. Her carriage accident of September 1902 kept
her in South Berwick until late in April of 1903.
April 2 fell on a Thursday in 1903.

Miss Ticknor's: Carlock has left this name blank in
the transcription and revealed it in a note. It is not
clear why.
Richard Cary identifies Anna Eliot Ticknor
(1823-1896). The eldest daughter of the American historian
George Ticknor, she consorted with Jewett in Boston and in
the Northeast Harbor-Mt. Desert region on the Maine coast.
Miss Ticknor was one of the editors of Life, Letters,
and Journals of George Ticknor (Boston, 1876), and
sole editor of Life of Joseph Green Cogswell
(Cambridge, Mass., 1874).
Note that at the presumed time of this letter, Miss
Ticknor has been dead for about seven years. Assuming these
various facts are accurate, Jewett apparently refers to a
meeting a considerable time in the past.

This transcription appears in Nancy Ellen Carlock's 1939
Boston University thesis, S.O.J.
A
Biography of Sarah Orne Jewett. Carlock says
that the manuscript of this letter is held by the Boston
Athenaeum, and, in fact, the Athenaeum catalog indicates
that the letter is in the Emily Marshall Otis Papers: .L140.
Notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.

I am going to write this evening to ask
whether it would be possible for you to do something for me,
in the confidence that you will without a moment's
hesitation write me that you would rather not do it if you
would in the least prefer not to.

The date of the annual meeting of our
Naples Table Association,* which is to be held at
Northampton at Smith College* this year, has been

[ Page 2 ]

changed from the 25th April to the 18th, so
that I expect to spend next Friday night there and to reach
Boston sometime late Saturday afternoon -- Miss Thomas*
^[Prest of Bryn Mawr in A.F.'s hand]^ will
spend Saturday night at the hotel there with me but is
obliged to return to Bryn Mawr [by corrected ]
Monday, so that she would either have to leave on Sunday
during the day or take the through night train -- What
I wondered was whether there would be any possibility, if
you were willing to ask her, of Mrs. Gardner's giving
permission to see her "palace"* on Sunday -----

I get to Boston so seldom to my great
regret & Miss Thomas so much less often even{,} that so
far it has not been possible for us to see it, and my trip
last week was

[ Page 3 ]

unexpected, so that ^and^ of course there
was no possibility of getting tickets at the last moment
--- I tried to get them for the next public days, next
April 21st, I think, hoping that I might be able to arrange
to stay over in Boston for a few days after the Naples
Table, but there was not one to be had for love or money
--- If you prefer not to ask about Sunday, do you
think it possible that she would sell an extra ticket beyond
the 200 for the 21st?

I enclose your little note as I was able
to get my note ^delivered^ to Mr. Sargent* without using it,
and was afraid, that if I sent it in, without [ absolute corrected
] necessity, Mrs. Gardner might suspect me of trying to get
into the galleries --- ^[ !!!!!! "Did not know you! A.F." in
A.F.'s hand and in blue ink.]^ It was so good of
you to give it to me.

I am looking forward to really seeing

[ Page 4 ]

you this next time, as I hope to be in town for four or five
days -- I do hope your English guest did not tire you,
and that you are very soon going to have Sarah*--

Miss Thomas who is spending the Easter
holiday with me here, asks to be most kindly remembered.

With love

Affectionately yours,

Mary E. Garrett

Notes

Mary E. Garrett: The identity of this person
actually is not certain. Mary Elizabeth Garrett (see
Correspondents) was a close friend of Fields and
Jewett. The letter seems clearly to be on her letterhead,
but her address is that of the Garrett Jacobs Mansion in Baltimore,
MD, the home of the wife of her deceased brother, Robert
Garrett (1847-1896) and Mary Sloan Frick Garret (later Jacobs,
1851 - 1936). Both Marys were connected with Bryn Mawr
College. Other transcribers have read the middle
initial in her signature as "S," though it could be
"E."
Probably the letter was written by Mary Elizabeth
Garrett, but it is possible the author is Mary Sloan
Garrett.

this season: In 1903, April 12 was Easter Sunday.

Holland House: Garrett writes from the Holland House Hotel at 30th St. and
Fifth Ave. in New York City.

Naples Table Association: In 1897, the American
physiologist Ida Henrietta Hyde (1857-1945) founded
the Naples Table Association to promote women's
participation in scientific education and research.

Smith College: Smith was and remains a women's
college in Northampton, MA.

Thomas: Wikipedia says: Martha Carey Thomas
(1857 - 1935) "was an American educator, suffragist,
linguist. She was the second president of Bryn Mawr College"
(1894-1922).

Mr. Sargent: American artist John Singer Sargent (1856-1925).
Though his residence and main studio were in London, he
often worked in Boston and New York at the turn of the 20th
century. In Isabella Stewart Gardner and Fenway
Court, Morris Carter notes that in the winter of 1903,
Sargent was using the Gothic Room at Fenway Court as his
studio (p. 201). His 1888 portrait of Gardner is well-known.

Mrs. Gardner ... Palace: Morris Carter says
"Fenway Court was first opened to the public on Wednesday,
February 21, 1903. The price of admission was one
dollar; the number of tickets was limited to two hundred,
and they were sold at Herrick's Ticket Office" (p. 202).

Sarah: Sarah Orne Jewett suffered a near-fatal
carriage accident on 3 September 1902. She was not
able to visit Fields in Boston until April of 1903.

The manuscript of this letter is held by the Fenway Museum,
Papers of Isabella Stewart Gardner, Fields, Annie (Adams)
(Mrs James T. Fields) 1882, 3 M letters, n.d., 1909, and
letter from Mary S. Savell [Mary E. Garrett] to Annie
Fields, 1903. 1915.
Dates in the manuscript are
inconsistently presented: "th" and "st" sometimes are
underlined; they always are in superscript. I have
followed Garrett in underlining, but I have not use
superscript.
Fields made notes on the letter in
addition to the note at the top of page one. These all
are in blue ink, in contrast to the black ink of the letter
as a whole.
New transcription and annotation by Terry
Heller, Coe College.

SOJ to Sara Norton

South Berwick, Thursday. [April 1903]

I have been hoping to write to you, but, oddly
enough now, when I am supposed to be better, it has grown
a great deal harder either to read or write. But I shall
not let you go away without a word to say how much I love
you. I am glad you liked that little book of Mrs.
Meynell's. There is something so charming to me in the way
she arranged it -- the harmony -- and the inevitableness
of her own choice and good taste have done that perhaps. I
had a little hope that you might carry it with you;
sometimes it has been the only book that I could read for
days. I was so sorry that I sent it away with such smudgy
fly-leaves, -- you might take an idle day on shipboard and
make it clean again! I have a bad habit of writing in my
books as if no one else were ever going to read them.

Notes

that little book of Mrs. Meynell's: This letter seems
clearly to have been written after Jewett's debilitating
carriage accident in September 1902. Alice Meynell's Later
Poems (1902) is a slim volume of 37 pages. That
Jewett has been reading and marking the book suggests that
she has owned it for some time. Blanchard reports in Sarah
Orne
Jewett (1994), that Jewett was in bed for weeks after
the accident, not eating with her family until October and
not leaving home until April 1903 (349-51). Based on
this information, I have dated this letter in April 1903.

This year she wrote in the spring to her friend
Ellen Chase: [April 1903 or later]*

"Did you hear all the song-sparrows as they came
by on their way to Berwick?

"I have been ill, but you will tell me if the
'Pointed Firs' look all right this year, won't you?"

Notes

April 1903 or later: Fields implies that the letter
containing these lines was written in the same year as the
previous undated letters in her collection. The last
previous letter in this collection is dated in 1902.
But Jewett's 1902 accident was in September. If, as
seems likely, this letter comes after the accident and was
written at a time when Jewett believes she'll not be able to
spend time Down East in the following summer, the earliest
possible date would be the spring of 1903.

You were so kind to send me these lovely flowers,
they are as bright as a little spring bonfire this gray
rainy morning!
It is very pleasant to be in town again, I can tell
you! and to find dear Mrs. Fields so much better.

Yours most affectionately,

Sarah O. Jewett

Notes

April 1903: Richard Cary places this letter in
spring of 1903. This is a reasonable guess if there is
any evidence that it was composed in 1903. Blanchard
in Sarah Orne Jewett (1994) says that after her
accident, Jewett was first able to visit Boston in April
1903 (p. 350).
This letter is edited by Richard Cary in Sarah Orne
Jewett Letters; the ms. is held by Colby College
Special Collections, Waterville, Maine. Annotation
by Terry Heller, Coe College.

SOJ to Mary Rice Jewett

[Monday morning]
[ 1903 ]

Tomorrow I shall have a good day I do hope, and in
the afternoon her rubbing friend* comes. I shall be
very careful of such a little handling of my neck goes a
great way and I had a very great misery all day and night
afterward -- though both were kind and thought
they were careful. I wont go into long stories but
it is no use to get laid up this week! though I
think Mrs. Cave* had good points in what she said -- and I
believe in the principle. I do think that as she
said it is a question whether it isn’t too late to get rid
of the thickening where the hurt was, if that’s what it
is. They gave me enough iodide of potash* to float a
man of war* thinking that was going to absorb
it. I d’know! as Uncle Will* says and
leaves the question open but I hope to get round to a good
days work tomorrow. I went out today awhile -- and
found Miss Grace Norton* here when I got back, which is
always a great pleasure.

her rubbing friend: Probably referring to Annie
Adams Fields. See Correspondents.
The "rubbing friend" is more obscure. Jewett seems
to imply in this letter that Annie Fields's rubbing doctor
from the "Friday night" letter is also the "rubbing
friend" of this letter and that her name is Mrs.
Cave. It is remotely possible that this is the wife
or sister of Francis A. Cave, an Osteopathic physician
practicing in Boston early in the twentieth century.
Assistance is welcome.

iodide of potash: Potassium iodide is a chemical
compound with multiple medical uses. How it was
meant to function in Jewett's case is not clear, unless,
perhaps, Jewett's caretakers were treating her swelling as
if it were a goiter. Wikipedia lists these common
side effects of ingesting the compound: vomiting,
diarrhea, abdominal pain, rash, and swelling of the
salivary glands.

man of war: a heavily armed warship, which
would displace a good deal of water.

This text is from transcriptions from mixed repositories
in the Maine Women Writer's Collection, University of New
England, Letters from Sarah Orne Jewett, 1875-1890, Folder
74, Burton Trafton Jewett Research Collection. For more
information about the individual transcription, contact
the Maine Women Writers Collection. Preparation by
Linda Heller. Notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.

SOJ to Mary Rice Jewett

[34 Beacon St. Tues. Night]
[ 1903 ]*

I got some letters written this morning, but it makes the
back of my neck ache to write, and I have had a peaceful
(and idle!) afternoon.

Notes

1903: A transcriber's note with this text reads: [ to
Mary ]. The rationale for the transcriber identifying
the letter as from 34 Beacon St., the address of Susan
Burley Cabot, is not given. If Jewett's sore neck is a
result of her 1902 carriage accident, then she would not be
writing any earlier than April 1903, when she first returned
to Boston after that accident.

This text is from transcriptions from mixed repositories in
the Maine Women Writer's Collection, University of New
England, Letters from Sarah Orne Jewett, 1875-1890, Undated
Letters, Folder 75, Burton Trafton Jewett Research
Collection. For more information about the individual
transcription, contact the Maine Women Writers Collection.
Notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
SOJ to Mary Rice Jewett

Wednesday morning

[ April 1903 ]*

Dear Mary

You mustn't keep worrying about me. I have really done
better even with all the anxiety, for I have seen so few
people and talked so little or been talked to!
Sometimes I believe that I shall do better at the mountains
if I go to just be alone. I know well enough what
tires me and isn't the right thing, but all the time it has
been so hard to avoid such things -- the
temptation is always coming up to do what will satisfy the
other person. I had rest enough for months and months,
it isn't that kind of rest, and I believe I should like to
do what I could without a nurse or anything, just as when I
spent the fortnight at Mouse* with success; though the case
now is some what different it might be cured with the same
cure.

Notes

1903: Jewett's reference to having enforced
rest for months indicates that she is writing after her 1902
carriage accident, and it seems likely she writes home
during her first visit to Boston after the accident, which
was in April of 1903.

This text is from transcriptions from mixed repositories in
the Maine Women Writer's Collection, University of New
England, Letters from Sarah Orne Jewett, 1875-1890, Undated
Letters, Folder 75, Burton Trafton Jewett Research
Collection. For more information about the individual
transcription, contact the Maine Women Writers Collection.
Notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.

SOJ to Mary Rice Jewett

Monday night

[ Late spring 1903 ]*

Dear Mary

I am ever so sorry about Mr. Brown* -- he was a good
kind little man. I send you my letter from
Theodore.* It was a cold damp day to get to
Cambridge yesterday so that he must be really all
right. Poor Aunt Mary Bell* -- it looks as if she
would hardly pull up from such a long winter’s
siege. I have wished that Uncle Will* had her to
take care of -- he has such a gift with “old cases” -- but
of course he is old now, and perhaps they dont get on with
him as we do, happily. I have very little to tell --
it was such a bad wet day that I didn’t try to go out
again as I meant to do. Mary Perkins* was here, as
dear as a young girl as she was as a child, and Lucy
Rantoul & her little girl and Rosamond.* I had a
great half an hour’s sleep or more this afternoon, and I
have felt better. I have been awake at night, and
then waked up with (?)* pains in my head lately but now I
have got righted perhaps. Frances Parkman*
was here this day but Mrs. Cabot* got all the call as I
was or had been rubbing.* Good night with love from
Sarah

Notes

Late spring 1903: A handwritten note on this
transcription reads: 189-. However, the letter seems to
have been composed after Jewett's 1902 carriage
accident. Late spring of 1903, when Jewett first
returned to Boston after the accident seems a likely date
for this letter.

Mr. Brown: While this could be J. Appleton
Brown who died in 1902, the context suggests this Mr.
Brown was a resident of South Berwick or at least, someone
about whom Mary would hear before Sarah. And the
date of this letter probably is 1903 or later.
Assistance is welcome.

Mary Perkins: Almost certainly, Mary Russell Perkins (1883-1970),
the youngest daughter of Edith Forbes Perkins. See
Edith Forbes Perkins in Correspondents.
Mary
Perkins "lived much of her life in California. She was an
amateur historian who was interested in George A. Custer
and the history of Western America. Mary Perkins died May
31, 1970, in Santa Barbara, California." She is
buried in Milton, MA.

with (?)* pains in my head: The
parenthetical question mark probably is the transcriber's
note rather than a part of the text. This detail
suggests that the letter is from a time after Jewett's
September 1902 carriage accident.

rubbing: In an undated letter thought to be from
1903, Jewett reports from Boston to Mary Jewett a visit
from Annie Fields's "rubbing doctor."

This text is from transcriptions from mixed repositories in
the Maine Women Writer's Collection, University of New
England, Letters from Sarah Orne Jewett, 1875-1890, Folder
73, Burton Trafton Jewett Research Collection. For more
information about the individual transcription, contact the
Maine Women Writers Collection. Preparation by Linda
Heller. Notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.

SOJ to Mary Rice Jewett

Friday night
[ Late spring, 1903 ]

Dear Mary

I have received your letter (contents noted!) and
now write a word before I go to bed after an active day
with many tired spots in it of discouragement but on the
whole a good day and some few bundles added to those that
shall be sent. I went to Miss Kiff,* and she was a
mother to me. I begin to understand Emily’s*
feelings entirely. She thinks that there was some
thing settled from the bruise when I twisted my neck, for
she could plainly feel it, and thinks she can make it
depart and not only rubbed it (A Treatment!)* but used a
“mild current of electricity to the scalp” and I felt very
much strung up and stepped round to old Helen’s* on the
way home and also rang for Josie Dexter in my pride and
saw neither but Dan* for a minute going to Worcester, but
on the way home I felt as if I were scattered all over the
“road”, and made of cork below my collar when I went into
the Ludlow to see how sister Sarah* was. She looked
so ill yesterday -- and found her more flourishing and
nice than I can now describe. Sarah Cabot made other
arrangements. She had forgotten she was going to see
her niece poor Mrs. Sam Cabot, so I stayed quiet here at
lunch and felt quite poor in my health.
Later in the afternoon Mrs. Field’s rubbing doctor* came
-- a nice woman -- and I was kindly invited in and she
felt of my neck and said the two top bones had ‘got out of
line['] when I fell and now had got fixed and set so they
interfered with the flow of blood to the brain with their
crookedness when anything happens to get more tired or
“congested” -- that is her word! She made me
feel to see that the two sides of my neck were not even --
and she also could feel with her fingers -- and was
interesting because she told what this state of things
would be likely to do, and it was just what it has done
the ‘crowding’ feeling & lack of balance etc.
etc. She said she had just such a patient once who
was thrown from a horse -- but she took that one very soon
after & wished she could have seen me as soon etc.
etc. I had a good little talk about Mrs. Fields with
her. Then I rested awhile and afterward did my
bundles, and at seven I went and had supper with Alice
Howe who had telephoned and her Mary begged me so to come
that I was glad not to refuse. We had the dearest
time together, and she read more of the story and it was
so quiet and nice. I was doubly glad I went and glad
to get home to dear A.F. and the Kitty. I write all
these particulars for you to search out the needle in the
bundle of straw. You needn’t send the book unless
you think it would make a beautiful present for Dan to
[illegible] I might pass it on as I dont care to keep
it. How good about Katy.* Give my love to Susy
if she comes, and to Katy. No more at present from
Sarah

Notes

1903: It seems almost certain that this letter was
composed after Jewett's September 1902 carriage accident,
from which she suffered for the rest of her life. The
earliest date by which she could have kept social
engagements and sought medical help in Boston would have
been the late spring of 1903, and this letter may come from
a later date.

Miss Kiff: This is very speculative, but it appears
Miss Kiff may be an early practitioner of the new
chiropractic treatment developed by Daniel David Palmer at the turn of the
twentieth century.

Josie Dexter ... Dan: Josephine Anna Moore (1846-1937) was
the second wife of Chicago lawyer Wirt Dexter (1832-1890). She returned
to her Boston home after her husband's death, where she
died, though she was buried with him in Chicago.
Dan probably is Rev. Daniel Merriman,
spouse of "Old Helen" Merriman. See Correspondents.

sister Sarah: This may be Annie Adams Fields's
sister, Sarah Holland Adams. See Fields in Correspondents.
The
location
of "the Ludlow" is not yet known. Assistance is
welcome.

Sarah Cabot ... her niece poor Mrs. Sam Cabot:
These references are mysterious. Jewett, of course,
was close to Sarah Cabot Wheelwright. See Correspondents.
Mrs.
Wheelwright's
brother, Dr. Samuel Cabot, married Hannah Lowell Jackson
(1820-1879). She had a number of other brothers, but
no nephew has yet been found who was named Samuel and whose
wife was living after 1900. Jewett may refer to a
different Sarah Cabot, but this person has not been
identified. Assistance is welcome.

Mrs. Field’s rubbing doctor: Annie Adams
Fields. See Correspondents.
It is remotely possible that Jewett refers to the wife or
sister of Francis A. Cave, an Osteopathic physician
practicing in Boston early in the twentieth century.
Assistance is welcome.

Alice Howe ... and her Mary: Alice Greenwood (Mrs.
George Dudley) Howe. The identity of Mrs. Howe's "Mary" has
not been determined. Assistance is welcome. See
Correspondents.

Susy: Though there are some other
possibilities, it is likely Jewett refers to Susan Marcia
Oakes Woodbury. See Correspondents.
This text is from transcriptions from mixed repositories in
the Maine Women Writer's Collection, University of New
England, Letters from Sarah Orne Jewett, 1875-1890, Folder
74, Burton Trafton Jewett Research Collection. For more
information about the individual transcription, contact the
Maine Women Writers Collection. Preparation by Linda
Heller. Notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.

SOJ to Mary Rice Jewett

Friday morning

[ April 1903 ]*

Dear Mary

"Those steamers are small; I couldn't help wishing
Susy* a fair day for the passage. And she has seen
Nelly Bell & "Mrs. Bikélas….* My! how I
begin to wish to shake out dear A. F.'s* little pockets to
hear things! --- I am doing well. I think that if I
stole something big enough to merit solitary confinement it
would be as cheap and good a cure as any, but I was
glad to see Josie D."*

Notes

April 1903: The earliest reference to Josie
Dexter in other letters is in 1900, so it seems likely that
this letter was composed in 1900 or later. That Jewett
speaks of being cured by solitary confinement suggests that
it goes with other letters from around April 1903.
Therefore, I have tentatively placed it with those letters.
The quotation marks in this text seem
uncharacteristic. It is not clear why they are
present.

Susy: This may be Susan Hayes Ward (See Correspondents) or Susan
Travers. The New York Times (December 8, 1904)
p. 9, reports the death of Miss Susan Travers of Newport, RI
on 7 December. According to the Times (December
11,
1904) p. 34, She was the daughter of William R.
Travers. Her sister, Matilda, married the artist,
Walter Gay. Though a biographical sketch is difficult
to locate, Internet searches indicate that she was an art
collector and a patron of the Boston Museum of Art, the New
York Botanical Garden, and various philanthropic
organizations. She assisted Sarah Porter (1813-1900)
in founding the Farmington [Connecticut] Lodge Society to
bring 'tired and overworked' girls from New York City to
Farmington during their summer vacation." This would
likely have interested Annie Fields in relation to her work
with the Associated Charities of Boston.

Nelly Bell & Mrs Bikélas: Jewett knew
several people named Helen / Nelly Bell. Without
further information, it is difficult to determine which she
means. Perhaps she refers to the daughter of the politician
Charles H. Bell, Helen (Mrs. Harold North) Fowler
(1848-1909). .
Mrs Bikélas has not been identified. Assistance
is welcome.

Josie D: Josephine Anna Moore (1846-1937) was
the second wife of Chicago lawyer Wirt Dexter (1832-1890). She returned
to her Boston home after her husband's death, where she
died, though she was buried with him in Chicago.

This text is from transcriptions from mixed repositories in
the Maine Women Writer's Collection, University of New
England, Letters from Sarah Orne Jewett, 1875-1890, Undated
Letters, Folder 75, Burton Trafton Jewett Research
Collection. For more information about the individual
transcription, contact the Maine Women Writers Collection.
Notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.

I shall accept with great pleasure your kind
invitation on behalf of the New England Women's Club* to a
Breakfast in honour of Mrs. Ward Howe* at the Hotel

[ Page 2 ]

Vendôme* on May 23d -----

Sarah Orne Jewett

Notes

Mrs. Cole: The identity of this person is not
yet known. A Mrs. E. B. Cole is known to have served
as president of an off-shoot of the New England Women's
Club, the Wednesday Morning Club in Boston, during
1893-1895. However, it has proven difficult to further
identify her or to learn more about her. She may be Ellen Standley Gale Cole (1859-1944),
but this has not been established.
Another possibility is Mrs. Otto B. Cole, a Boston
folklorist and translator active in woman's suffrage at the
turn of the 20th century. Her given name may be Mollie
R.

1903: This date is probable, but not
certain. The New York Times (26 May 1907, p.
3) reports an annual birthday breakfast for Julia Ward Howe
at the Hotel Vendôme, sponsored by the New England Women's
Club. The most recent year in which May 16 fell on a
Saturday was 1903. If Jewett has dated her letter
correctly, then almost certainly she accepted this
invitation for the 1903 celebration. Though Jewett was
still weak from her September 1902 carriage accident, she
was able to visit in Boston in the late spring of 1903.

New England Women's Club: This club was established in
1868. Julia Ward Howe was among its founders.
Run by women, with suffrage as a main cause, the club
admitted men as members.

Mrs. Ward Howe: Julia Ward Howe. See Correspondents.
She was born 27 May 1819.

The manuscript of this letter is held by the Small Library,
University of Virginia, Special Collections MSS 6218, Sarah
Orne Jewett Papers. The microfilm image of this note
indicates that it was written on both sides of a card.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.

SOJ to Sarah Wyman Whitman

[ Begin letterhead ]

South Berwick, Maine

[ End letterhead ]

Thursday

[ Summer 1903 ]

Dearest S. W.

I was so sorry that I could not get to the
Studio. I mean to say ^first^ that I could not see you
again, -- and you will be sure too that I think a great deal
about the window . . I hope that it gets on without
too much trouble to you? You must tell me when you
wish to know what to put on it! but

[ Page 2 ]

but [ repeated ] I dont know that there need be
anything but the name Theodore Herman Jewett Class of 1834,*
and I have thought beside of the Four Commands that
Hippocrates gave to the great [deleted word]
profession: Learning, Sagacity, Humanity, Probity* (or
Integrity, if you like the word better.{ ) } All this
I meant to talk about -- perhaps we shall have a chance yet.

[ Page 3 ]

or you will tell me if you think of anything else --

I am certainly no worse for the gread adventure of
going to town and indeed better, with something new to think
about, but I was pretty tired for a few days ^after getting
back^ -- in ^the^ morning I stay in bed and in the afternoon
I sit in the garden under an apple tree -- and make believe
read. It is a hurried and exacting life.

With best love always

S. O. J.

Notes

Summer 1903: This date is based upon
the fact that Whitman is working on the memorial window that
Jewett commissioned to honor her father at Bowdoin College,
which Whitman completed in 1903. Jewett seems to make
clear that she has been very ill, as she was after her
September 1902 carriage accident, which left her unable to
travel away from home until late spring of 1903.Class of 1834: What text, if any,
accompanies the window Jewett commissioned to honor her
father at Bowdoin College has not been discovered. The
window cannot be examined except from the outside as a
result of repurposing the interior space of Memorial Hall.

Four Commands that Hippocrates: Hippocrates of Kos (c. 460 - c. 370
BC) was a Greek physcian of the classical age, often called
"the father of medicine," perhaps best remembered for his
statement of medical ethics, "The Hippocratic Oath."
The source of these "commands" has not yet been identified,
but it is often repeated in medical literature of the 19th
century that Hippocrates thought these qualities
"indepensable in every good physician."

Dear old fellow, I live in a semi-detached
condition, and do or do not as my demon bids, having an
almost fierce predetermination to do as nearly as I can
"what seems best." The result, if I dare speak of results
at all, is that I keep a little work going, fling an
occasional small sop to the social Cerberus,* read a
little (which I have not done for many years), write only
when I can't help it because that nerve seems the most
"chawed up" of all, and pray to be forgiven! No wonder
that under these conditions my hope of heaven seems small.
. . .

Notes

Cerberus: In Greek mythology, a three-headed,
dragon-tailed dog that guarded the entrance to Hades.

Who should drive up to this door yesterday but old
Helen!1 Mary had gone to the Junction to meet
Theodore* at the express train and Helen hopped out of one
car, he from another, and was promptly sent afoot across
Fife's lane to avail himself of the trolley car. Helen
meant to walk up to the village, and she was
amazed to find Mary waiting. I was amazed to see
a smart hat, when Timmy2 and I were expecting a
plain straw hat as we sat at the window. She was just as
you said, and had one of those days of looking quite
splendid (that's not the word but we have often speaked
together of the moments). And travelled north by the
afternoon express. It did this dull heart good to see her,
and to hear about you and the Mexican drawn-work,* and a
quiet hour such as was to be long treasured. I had a sense
of being replete with unanswered questions as soon as she
had gone -- I begin to feel a little like my poor Joanna
on Shellheap Island3 but please forgive the
allusion. I have always seen my story people after
they are written, so here's me! I always love to remember
that you liked that chapter, and wrote the dearest letter.

I had a great pleasure in Mr. Garnett's paper in
the Academy4 lately. The least
significant paragraphs were copied into the Tribune
-- but one does so like to have somebody (who knows)
speak seriously of one's work and stick fast to a point of
view. He liked "The Hiltons' Holiday,"5 which I
always call your story because of kind words. The
whole thing made one feel as if perhaps the old inkbottle
might be needed again, after all, one of these days, but
it is strange how all that strange machinery that writes,
seems broken and confused. One ought not to expect to
write forever but I seem never to be thinking about
anything now -- it's very dull!

Yesterday my dear old uncle6 came for
a visit and I stop now and then as I write to hear
Theodore's loud discoursing voice. They talk about college
and the medical profession as if they were exactly the
same age -- one twenty-four this day and the other eighty
last week, and not a bit the matter with either body or
mind but a sad deafness. I love his dear gentle ways. Last
night one of T's compeers (a charming young fellow, but
caught in the nets of a poor foolish little bride) came up
here from the shore. When they were saying good night, I
heard the boy's voice and then Uncle Will's "Good night, Sir!"
like an old Virginian. The tone was enough to make that
sort of boy feel suddenly as if he had gone from private
to Captain. I could hear it all down in the hall, and
somehow -- perhaps it was the Southern touch of it! --
made me think of you.

I should love to get you a pair of Rocky Mountain
ponies used to steep inclines, so that you could 'rise'
Thunderbolt Hill7 at will! Dear A. F.* has such
beautiful times with you this summer, and I hear about
you. She writes very dear letters that give one a sense of
being with her as one reads. I shall try again for a few
days visit by and by, but I dread the trains still almost
too much. Dear fellow, I think of you a great deal. I pray
heaven to make you stronger -- not overdoing is the only
real tonic! So no more at present from yours with love and
pride,

S. O. J.

The garden is so nice -- old-fashioned indeed
with pink hollyhocks and tall blue larkspurs. You might
make a sketch with but slight trouble, with figures of old
ladies wearing caps in the long walks. I seem to confuse
your art with Mr. Abbey's!!8

Notes

1 Helen Bigelow Merriman (1844-1933),
artist and author of books and articles on painting and
painters, was a Boston friend of Mrs. Fields. She usually
summered at Stonehurst, the Bigelow estate at
Intervale, New Hampshire. En route between city and
country, she occasionally stopped off to visit the Jewetts
without notice.

7 The most vivid description of Mrs.
Fields's "eagle's eyrie" is in Harriet Prescott Spofford's
A LittleBook of Friends (Boston, 1916),
19: "the steep avenue leads up to a wonderful outlook of
beauty set in the midst of flaming flowers, three sides
overlooking the wide shield of the sea, but the fourth
side so precipitous that the broad piazza there is only a
turret chamber above the tops of the deep woods and
orchards below, with the birds flying under it, and
looking far over the winding river, ripening meadow, and
stretching sea again." A photograph of Mrs. Fields on the
back piazza of Gambrel Cottage hangs in the
breakfast room of the Memorial House at South Berwick.

8 Edwin Austin Abbey (1852-1911)*
started as an illustrator of books and magazines but
became internationally known as a painter of historical
and literary murals. Essentially a portrayer of happy
moods, he specialized in scenes of delicate lyrical
sentiment.

This letter is edited and annotated by Richard Cary in Sarah
Orne
Jewett Letters; the ms. is held by Colby College
Special Collections, Waterville, Maine. With
assistance from Terry Heller.

SOJ to Sylvia Hathaway Watson Emerson

Saturday July [August]
29th [1903]*

[Begin letterhead]

South Berwick Maine

[ End letterhead ]

My dear Sylvia

I have thought 'ever-so-many' times about
[writing corrected] to you and said to
myself that I didn't know how to direct the letter,
and the great thought has now occurred to my still
greater Mind that I could send the letter to
Milton!*

You see what's left of your friend, but I can
truly say that you are welcome to the affectionate
residue! -- I have thought so often of you and dear
Mr. Emerson{.}* I wished that I could see you

[ Page 2 ]

both, shouldn't we sit down happy and idle together,
and I'd sharpen the pencils if you two would
undertake to sharpen my wits a little. Next
week it will be a year since I tried to go through
to China head-first* and showed such a lack of
judgment in choosing a hard road for the starting
place. I am not good for much yet but a
concussion of the brain doesn't seem to impair the
affections, though it may have an effect upon the
walk and conversation.

[ Page 3 ]

Just one word to carry you both my love and Mary's*
too. Ask W.R.E.* if he doesn't wish we could
have gone to Wells to the 250th anniversary
-- to see all the Littlefields and Hatches and
Perkinses in the World!!* Poor old Wells with
the long sandy road and carrot crops & blue
fringed gentians in the fields where the sand shows
through the grass. I always like to think of
it! -- I used to go there "doctoring" -- and there
was always a ^big, cheerful^ fisherman or sea cap'n
[browned corrected] with sea tan, and a thin
blue-white wife going off in a decline! This
showed the salt water itself a better climate than
its adjacent town of Wells! Goodbye dear friend

[ Up left margin of page 1
]

with love from S. O. J.

[ Down from left across the
top margin of page 1 ]

Our garden is lovely this year -- all full of tiger
lilies just now, round the edges and the row of
poplar has grown nearly as high as yours in the wet
weather.

[ Up the right margin of
page 1 ]

Great year for the glads etc!

NotesSaturday July [August] 29th [1903]:
It
is virtually certain that Jewett has misdated her
letter. July 29 in 1903 was not a Saturday,
but August 29 was. She mentions in the letter
that a week after her writing is the anniversary of
the carriage accident of 3 September 1902. She
mentions the Wells, Maine 250th anniversary
celebration as having happened. It took place
26 August 1903.

250th anniversary .... Littlefields and Hatches
and Perkinses: A program for the 250th
anniversary of the founding of the town of Wells,
Maine, was available for purchase on E-Bay in spring
2017. According to that program, the event
took place on 26 August 1903. There was a
"Historical Parade, giving Pictorial Illustrations
of Events in the History of Wells. This was
followed by evening exercises in Ogunquit: a band
concert, oratory and fireworks. Among the
speakers was the Honorable Charles E.
Littlefield. He also was the chairman of the
"Display of Fireworks." Charles Edgar Littlefield
(1851 -1915) was a United States Representative from
Maine. In 1903, he was in the middle of his
final four terms in Congress.

The following image from that program is
available courtesy of EBay.

The manuscript of this letter is held by the Library of
Congress in the Owen Wister Papers, 1829-1966, MSS46177, Box
19. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe
College.

With this letter in its Library of Congress folder appear
two related items, not written by Jewett.

Anonymous note about the above letter

It seems clear that this writer is mistaken about the date
of the letter. As the second item shows, there is
reason to be confused about this. The author also is
mistaken in identifying Annie Adams Fields as a daughter of
Charles Francis Adams, Sr.
(1807-1886), as she would have been were she a sister of:
John Quincy Adams II (September 22, 1833 – August 14,
1894)
Charles Francis Adams Jr. (May 27, 1835 – May 20,
1915)
Henry Brooks Adams (February 16, 1838 – March 27,
1918).

This letter seems to be dated in 91, but if it really does
refer to Jewett's "brave letter" above, that date must be
incorrect. One possibility is that the number "91"
which appears on this page refers to a post-office box
number rather than to the year of the letter. Further
assistance in sorting out this mystery is welcome.

* * *

[C L Allerton ? ] P. O. Box
Sept 2d 91

[Text apparently added at an angle beneath the date]
How lovely the [unrecognized word] are.

Dear Owen,

I send you Sarah Jewetts letter which will give you
her news & Mrs Fields. Don't try to answer
this{.} You must be busy up to yr eyes -- I thot you
might like to read this brave letter. My [unrecognized
word] gains by slow degrees. Affly
yours,

Sylvia W. E.

I wrote Mother about the crow

SOJ to Isabella Stewart Gardner

Saturday September 12th [1903 or 1908]

[ Begin letterhead ]

South Berwick, Maine

[ End letterhead ]

Dearest Mrs. Gardner

What a kind and dear note you have written to
me. I shall never forget it! Oh you are quite
right there was no reason for such a foolish disaster, and
so one can make no excuses.

My sister* and I are so sorry to have been away

[ Page 2 ]

when you came to Hamilton
House.* I must give you my story about
the charming old place sometime -- !

Your ever affectionately

Sarah O. Jewett

Notes

1903 or 1908: 12 September fell on a Saturday in 1903
and again in 1908. Jewett's letters suggest that she
was at home in South Berwick during parts of September in
both years. I have chosen arbitrarily to place the
letter with others of 1903. It is at least remotely
possible that the disaster to which she refers is her
September 1902 carriage accident.

Hamilton House: See Emily Davis Tyson in Correspondents.
Hamilton House became a place to visit in South Berwick
after 1900, when Tyson completed her restoration of the
property. It is possible that Jewett refers to her
novel, The Tory Lover (1901), which is set partly at
the Hamilton House.

The manuscript of this letter is held by the Isabella
Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, MA. Transcription and
annotation by Terry Heller, Coe College.

SOJ to Annie Elizabeth Caldwell Mower

South Berwick, Maine
September 18, [1903]

My dear Mrs. Mower:

I have been wishing that I could see you to tell you
of my great sympathy in hearing of your aunt's death.1
I cannot help feeling that as her strength grew less it must
have been a great comfort to her to watch your always
increasing power of usefulness, but just because your cares
and interests grow larger, you will miss her help and
counsel all the more. We only understand the blessing of
older friends and 'somebody to go to' as we grow older and
put our hearts more and more into what we find to do. But to
have such a counsellor once is not to lose her now; you will
always have the blessing of her love and her true wisdom.
The memory of such love and wisdom will go with you into
hard places as well as happy ones all your life.

It is always very touching to me to see a person
whose influence has been widespread, take up the
less-evident, the restricted service that age permits. There
is a pathetic phrase that great men may live long enough to
see themselves forgotten, but it is never so! I believe that
their best teaching may be given then to those who are
fortunate enough to be their nearest friends and they may
give the golden value of their lives into a few fit hands.
It is the loveliest inheritance, this of character, and the
sense of true values, with the power of appreciation, make
its best treasures.

I am sure that you often feel lonely, with all your
gratitude that the days of your aunt's failing strength are
done, but you will have many happy thoughts, and a new sense
of her nearness to you, for company and consolation. I am
sure that it was a great comfort to her to have a niece like
you. Believe me

This letter is edited and annotated by Richard Cary in Sarah
Orne
Jewett Letters; the ms. is held by Colby College
Special Collections, Waterville, Maine.SOJ to Sarah Norton

October 23 [ 1905 ]

I am very sorry and disappointed that you could not
come, S. dear! Our fine weather seems to be keeping on
through another chapter. I have not finished the House
of Mirth* but I look forward to the last chapters with
great eagerness -- it will be very dependent on these last
chapters. Mrs Fields is very well and seems rested
after the really hot and busy days in town. Mr.
Howells spent yesterday afternoon with us. Please
forgive this post card because it lay closest to hand.

With love
S. O. J.

Notes

1905: This probable date presumes that Jewett
read Wharton's The House of Mirth as it was
serialized in 1905.

House of Mirth: American fiction
writer Edith Wharton (1862-1937) published
her novel, The House of Mirth, in
1905. It was serialized in Scribner's Magazine
beginning in January 1905, and appeared as a book on 14
October.

This transcription appears in Nancy Ellen Carlock's 1939
Boston University thesis, S.O.J.
A
Biography of Sarah Orne Jewett. She indicates
that she owned the postcard in 1939. Notes by Terry
Heller, Coe College

SOJ to S. Weir Mitchell

October 27th

[ 1903 ]

South Berwick, Maine

My dear Friend

I cannot help writing to thank you
for a very great pleasure: this exquisite St.
Martin’s Summer in the new Century!* How can one
speak of its delicacy its strength its charming
subtleties? ---- By reading it again and again and putting
it on a shelf where there are only treasures, since
actions speak louder than

[ Page 2 ]

words – "When the leaves were drifting down
around you – you seemed like the glad young Spring"
--------- Alas that we have no Sainte-Beuve* in these days
to say what should be said of a piece of work like this!

I cannot tell you what a pleasure you
have given me and in these days when pleasures are very
few. My life was all in writing and reading and friends
and a year ago I was thrown from a high carriage -- My
head tried

[ Page 3 ]

to get through to China and didn't!
and since that 3rd of September
1902 I have either being staying in bed very “Dumpy” and
confused or creeping out into the old garden with a stick,
walking zig-zag and swaying about (no coordination to
speak of!) pain in my head thickening of meningeal -----
(word gone!) and all the rest. You know how tiresome
such cases can be to doctor and patient[.]*
One does remember that, but all my excellent doctors speak

[ Page 4 ]

of "that Prince and Pattern of Physicians, Time"
as old Sydenham* called him ----- I was touched to
the heart when one day my good doctor Sleeper* the village doctor
here told me how much he owed to you in his
practice. he had managed to get all your
books ^of medicine^ somehow or other. nothing*
had helped him more ----- so a good deed shines in this
naughty world -- Forgive this note, I am never sure of
writing straight since I often think so crookedly. And
must write lying down since I can’t write at all at a desk
-- What good can Habit be! I have spent

[ Page 5 ]

time enough at a desk writing in my day.

; Thank you dear friend
for the delight of all you have written ----- the thing I
love best of all to remember is the poem of this Roman
Areus* the father
and his little girl when he puts his hand on her shoulder
----- it is so doctorly too ---

I love to think of writing -- There
is nothing like it for happiness for oneself or ones
friends. When the wonderful little mill starts
itself, and you need only seize your pen. But

[ Page 6 ]

it seems not really true that it ever
happened! ----- or that the long evenings in summer when
we used to talk at Miss Hickman's* or at Beverly were
anything but the memory of a happy dream. Please do
not think that this calls for an answer – you will be busy
and I shall read St. Martin’s Summer again

Yours ^and Mrs. Mitchell’s^
affectionately,

S.O. Jewett

[ Page 7 ]

(I wish that my Tory Lover had been
as live and good as your Hugh Wynne* but it was my
country too and my heart was in it, and all my pleasure
----- )

Notes

St. Martin’s Summer ... new Century:
Mitchells
story, "The Summer of St. Martin" appeared
in Century Magazine (November 1903), pp.
144-148. The line Jewett quotes appears in column 1
of p. 145. St. Martin's Summer is a period of
sunshine and warmth near the Feast Day of St. Martin on 31
October.

"that Prince and Pattern of Physicians,
Time" ...Sydenham: Wikipedia says: Thomas Sydenham
(1624 - 1689) "was an English physician. He was the author
of Observationes Medicae which became a standard
textbook of medicine for two centuries so that he became
known as 'The English Hippocrates'." For the
quotation, see Kenneth Dewhurst, Dr. Thomas Sydenham (1624-1689): His
Life and Original Writings (1966), p 47.

doctor Sleeper: Almost
certainly, this is Dr. Charles M. Sleeper
(1856-1924). According to his obituary in the Portsmouth Herald (NH), he
was a graduate of Bowdoin Medical College (1883) and was
active in Maine democratic politics. His wife was
Julia F. Sleeper (1861-).

nothing: Jewett has underlined
"nothing" twice.

Areus: It seems likely Jewett
refers to the first century BC Greek stoic philosopher, Arius Didymus of Alexandria who
became the teacher of the Roman emperor, Augustus
Caesar. However it is not clear what she means by
this reference. Perhaps she refers to the end of
"The Summer of St. Martin" (p. 148), when the main
character quotes for a young woman a verse that expresses
the wish to shield her from loss and suffering.
; Perhaps more likely, she is referring to her
favorite poem by Mitchell, "In the Valley of the Shadow:
The Centurion," collected in his volume of poems, In
War-Time (1895). See her letter to Mitchell of 15
September 1890.

Miss Hickman's: Miss Hickman
has not been identified. It is possible she is a
relative of Dr. Napoleon Hickman of
Philadelphia, PA, a friend and associate of Mitchell.
Further information is welcome.

Tory Lover ...Hugh
Wynne: Jewett's final novel, The Tory
Lover appeared in 1900-01. Mitchells Hugh
Wynne, Free Quaker (1897), first appeared
serially in Century Magazine (53:1) November 1896
- October 1897.

The manuscript of this letter is held in the Sarah Orne
Jewett Papers, Maine Women Writer's Collection, University
of New England, Houghton Autograph File to S. Weir
Mitchell #4. Transcription by Linda Heller; annotation
by Terry Heller, Coe College.

SOJ to Thomas Bailey Aldrich

29th October [ 1903 ]*

[ Begin letterhead ]

South Berwick.
Maine.

[ End letterhead ]

My dear friend

How good you are to send me this charming
little book!* It is even going to be nicer than any of the
chapters that I read in the Century -- those used to make
one ^ -- people^ feel as if two peoples were talking and
when the [ theist ? ] ^T.B.A.^ was just as
interesting as he could be something interrupted him!

[ Page 2 ]

It will not seem interrupted now and it is one of those best
books that always seem new. The Herrick essay* has never
been put away off the table in the library -- Perhaps one
may not ^often^ read anything but the essay and the lovely
list of contents, but it is pleasant to have it there.
Indeed I cannot very often read much, but I grow a little
stronger all

[ Page 3 ]

the time, and if I am careful not to
overdo I dont have such long bad pains in my head.
Of course I cant write anything but lop-sided notes of
little intellect but great affection! -- It is a strange
life and in fourteen months I have not succeeded in
getting used to it. I am going to see dear A.F.*
tomorrow. She was here and then went to Craigie House*
for a visit -- to keep

[ Page 4 ]

a birthday. She isn't strong at all, but much better than a
while ago.* Give my love to Lilian, and to Charley and Tal*
when you are writing --

Yours always affectionately

Sarah O Jewett

Notes

1903: Jewett notes that it is 14 months since her
September 1902 near-fatal carriage accident.

little book: It is difficult to know what book
Aldrich has given her. Usually he gives her copies of
his newest, so perhaps this is a copy of Ponkapog
Papers. Aldrich included his Herrick essay in this
collection.

a while ago: Fields may have suffered a mild
stroke in the fall of 1902. In March of 1903, she
seems to have been under the care of a nurse at home.
See SOJ to Fields, probably March 1903.

Lilian ... Charley and Tal: Lilian Woodman
Aldrich. See Correspondents.
The Aldriches' twin sons, Talbot and Charles were born
in 1868.

The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton
Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. Thomas Bailey
Aldrich Papers, 119 letters of Thomas Bailey and Lilian
Woodman Aldrich, 1837-1926. MS Am 1429 (117). Transcribed
and annotated by Terry Heller, Coe College.
At the bottom left of page one, in
another hand, is a circled number: 2729*.

SOJ to Mary Rice Jewett

Wednesday morning
[ December 1903 ]
South Berwick, Maine

Dear Mary

. . . . . . . . . . . . .You can give the Posy
Ring* in the parlor closet to the children at Old
Fields.* "Little Ichabod".* They love such books --
and they had the mate last year. Perhaps Elise* will
like the Christmas Tree trimming in the little S.T.
trunk!* With love

Sarah

Notes

1903: The transcriber includes this note in the
transcription: [Boston Mass., Dec. 25, 1903]. The line
of points that opens the letter text suggests that he has
transcribed only part of it.

Posy Ring: Probably, this is The
Posy Ring: a Book of Verse for Children, chosen and
classified by Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora Archibald
Smith. WorldCat indicates that it was first published
in 1903 as part of the Children's Crimson Series by Grosset
& Dunlap.

Old Fields: At the time, this was the name of
the home occupied by the family of Sophia Elizabeth Hayes
Goodwin. See Correspondents.

"Little Ichabod" … mate of it: What is meant by
"Little Ichabod" is uncertain. Though the phrase
appears in quotation marks, it could easily refer to a
member of the Goodwin family, in which Ichabod was an
often-used name.
The mate of The Posy Ring from the Children's
Crimson Series in 1902, was Golden Numbers: Poems for
Children and Young People.

S.T.: What is meant by these initials is not
yet known. Assistance is welcome.

This text is from transcriptions from mixed repositories,
Letters from Sarah Orne Jewett, 1875-1890, folder 63, Burton
Trafton Jewett Research Collection. For more information
about the individual transcription, contact the Maine Women
Writers Collection. Notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.

SOJ to Mark DeWolfe Howe

[December 25, 1903]

From The Gentle Americans (1965) by Helen Howe.
Addressed to Mark DeWolfe Howe

The year 1903 -- two years before the
dinner in Charles Street -- had seen the publication of
Father’s Boston, the Place and the People. * Sarah
Orne Jewett had written him in that year, on Christmas
evening:

MY DEAR FRIEND

You are very kind to send me your Book -- I am
delighted to have it with your name and mine in the beginning,
and I am not writing before I read it, because I have read it
already with the greatest delight and admiration.

-- I have been waiting for many days to tell you so…
that I have found it strangely difficult in this last month….
On some days when I could read I caught eagerly at the Boston,
and I wish that I could say now how fine I think it is as a
piece of work: charm -- perspective, proportion, dignity -- readable-ness
are all there. Yes, and seriousness which is so often
left out of books in these days -- we are sometimes afraid of
not being amusing enough -- You often take the humorous point
of view, but never descend to the showman’s banter -- I have
just looked into a book that is spoiled by it….

Emily* came last night and we had a dear time with her --
they got looking at one of the autograph books, of famous
women, to find a portrait of the Honble Mrs. Norton she that
was Sheridan* -- and then Emily gave one of her best accounts
of a luncheon in Hallison [so transcribed] Avenue with
Dr. Kin the Chinese lady* whom you know. I worked at my
pink crocheting most of the time and it was a pretty
evening. Emily liked the book I am glad to say -- and
seemed pretty well I thought. I have to offer thanks for
a Coffee Pot! -- Mrs. Fields* did not think to take it down
with the heap of presents so it had a glorious moment all to
itself after we came up stairs. And ‘I [ so
transcribed ] appreciated it to the full even though it
was cold and empty at the moment. It is an important
person to receive into any family. I shall now keep a
sugar bowl upstairs and then Katy* can have this hot, with a
little cream and a little pitcher. I feel very much
pleased. Mrs. Fields gave us a beautiful big piece of
the Italian trapunte work* for the table -- finer than
any we have got. Emily put a discerning eye upon it
before any of the other presents which she seemed to enjoy
looking over. Today they must be cleared away. I
am so glad that A.F. had such a pretty lot of
them. Your list is in the letter down stairs and I shall
send it back next time I write. John* has just brought
up the little leather trunk. (I think it is jealous now
if it gets left at home.) Give my love to Uncle
Will.* I am so glad he could come and I wish I had been
there to see him. Frances Parkman* was here just before
luncheon going to New York today -- and dear Ellen Mason* at
the end of the afternoon and had a cup of tea with A.F. and
brought her doggy. She gave me a beautiful copy of the
John Bellini doge in the Natl Gallery in
London.* I always thought it looked like her, which
amused her. She talked a good deal and very
affectionately about Susy Travers.* Frances gave me a
lovely Japanese basket-box, but I cant stop to give you my
list -- here’s A.F. already for the letters. Much love
to you and Theodore* and all.

from

Sarah

Two beautiful winter St. Moritz picture cards* for you &
me from K. Dexter* but I haven’t any envelope to send them.

Notes

After Christmas, December 1903: A handwritten
note on this transcription reads: 189-. This date is inferred
from the appearance of Dr. Kin in Boston in January of 1904.

Emily ... a portrait of the Honble Mrs. Norton she that was
Sheridan: For Emily Tyson see Correspondents.
Caroline Sheridan Norton (1808-1877) was a
British social reformer and author, remembered for her work in
persuading Parliament to pass acts for the protection of women
who become victims in divorce cases.

Hallison Avenue ... Dr. Kin the Chinese lady: It
seems likely that Jewett refers to Kin
Yamei (1864-1934), a Chinese born and American raised
doctor who trained in the United States. Though she
practiced medicine in Japan at various times, she was often in
the United States. In January of 1904, her biography reports, she lectured to women's
clubs in Boston, at the invitation of Isabella Stewart Gardner
(p. 10). She returned in April and September of the same year.
It seems likely that "Hallison Avenue" is a mistake in
transcription for Harrison Ave., which is in Boston's Chinatown.

John Bellini doge in the Natl
Gallery in London: Wikipedia says: "The Portrait of Doge
Leonardo Loredan is a painting by the Italian Renaissance
master Giovanni Bellini, dating from 1501. It
is on display in the National Gallery in London. It portrays
Leonardo Loredan, Doge of Venice from 1501 to 1521...." The
entry on the painting includes a reproduction.

winter St. Moritz picture cards: St. Moritz is an alpine resort town in
Switzerland. It became a center of winter tourism with an
emphasis on the baths and on winter sports in the second half of
the nineteenth century.

K. Dexter: This person may be Mrs. Fred Dexter, who is
mentioned in other letters, but her identity remains unknown. Frederic Dexter (1841-1895), a Boston
cotton merchant, was married to Susan Chapman Dexter
(1843-1917). Both are buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery in
Cambridge. Mrs Dexter lived at Beverly Farms as well as in
Boston's Back Bay area, and so might easily have been known to
Fields and Jewett. However, the first initial "K" does not
fit. Frederic Dexter had 6 siblings, but none with a K
initial.

This text is from transcriptions from mixed repositories in the
Maine Women Writer's Collection, University of New England,
Letters from Sarah Orne Jewett, 1875-1890, Folder 73, Burton
Trafton Jewett Research Collection. For more information about
the individual transcription, contact the Maine Women Writers
Collection. Preparation by Linda Heller. Notes by
Terry Heller, Coe College.

SOJ to Mr. William Wilson*

148 Charles Street
Tuesday.
[1903 or later]

Dear Mr. Wilson

Thank you very much for your very kind note and the book
-- which is interesting as all such things are which have to do
with human nature. I am ignorant enough of the science of
astrology, but however ingenious these workings-out may be I
never can help wondering how far they have any sound foundation,
and how far the later

[ Page 2 ]

certainties and idealities of science can be made to bear them
out. 'The Stars' were so different to the early
astrologers were they not? -- it must have been easy enough for
sages and [ philosophers corrected ] in those days to
announce whatever truths they chose, and to speak of all the
'influences' of Mercury and Mars. But however one may feel
about the uncertainties

[ Page 3 ]

of astrology it has grown into a most elaborate and ingenious
system and careful study, and [this corrected] is
interesting in itself: even if one remembers the story of the
saint who walked off with his head under his arm after
decapitation,* and the French wit who said "C'est le premier
pas qui conte!"*

All the same I shall be much interested to see the
horoscope . . . Pray

[ Page 4 ]

give our love to your wife who gives us unspeakable pleasure
with her lovely music. You can hardly think how much we
have enjoyed the Sunday evenings with you both.

Believe me ever

Yours most sincerely

S. O. Jewett

Notes

Wilson: The recipient of this letter is not
known. However, there is a strong candidate: William A.
Wilson (1853-1926), husband of the well-known Scottish-born
pianist and composer, Helen Hopekirk (1856-1945). The
couple married in 1882 and eventually settled in Boston, MA in
1897. With this letter in the Small Library is a newspaper
clipping from the Herald of 20 November 1945 of Helen
Wilson's obituary.
Little has been discovered about Mr. Wilson, making it
difficult to know what book he may have sent to Jewett and about
his interest in astrology. While this currently appears
coincidental, a good candidate for the book title would be Sir
William Wilson's Shakespeare and Astrology (Boston,
1903). As yet there is no known relationship between these
two William Wilsons, except that they both appear to be Scots
born the same year. Nevertheless, this book seems likely
to have interested Jewett enough that she may well have read it,
especially at the recommendation of a person she considered a
friend.

1903 or later: This highly uncertain date is based
upon the possibility that Wilson has given Jewett a copy of a
book published in 1903.